CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Outside the Pale

It looked as if the Roman Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia had finally given way to relentless Communist pressure. “Priests and Catholic laymen,” said a government spokesman last week, “are now obligated to faithful and effective collaboration … in the building of socialism.”

The Czech puppet Parliament last month passed a church law, by the usual unanimous show of hands, which made all clergymen employees of the state, and set up President Klement Gottwald’s Communist son-in-law, Alexej Cepicka, as cabinet minister in charge of religion. The Catholic Church had consistently fought against the law; one manifesto, signed by 80% of the country’s 7,000 priests, declared it “absolutely unacceptable.” A memorandum sent to the government by the Council of Bishops a week after the passage of the law charged that it violated the Czech Republic’s constitution (which guarantees freedom of religion and the church’s right to administer its own internal affairs), and thus placed the church “outside the legal pale.”

Last fortnight, the Episcopate abruptly shifted its stand, authorized priests to accept state salaries, to swear loyalty to the Communist “people’s democracy” and to pledge themselves not to do anything “against [the state’s] interests, security or integrity.” But later the bishops instructed the priests to take the oath with the qualification, “. . . Since I am convinced that the government would never ask anything which would be contrary to the laws of God or human rights.”

The Reds slyly used the Episcopate’s concession to discredit the church. President Gottwald freed 127 priests (jailed as hostages for their opposition to the government’s new church laws), because they had “promised to mend their ways.” A state court judge told the released priests: “I beg you to consider the significance and implied pledge of this magnanimous act.”

The Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia was faced with a painful choice between two evils: to continue in full defiance and risk wholesale persecution, or try to salvage as much as it could of its organization by coming to some sort of terms with the state and playing for time. Hungary’s Cardinal Mindszenty had chosen the uncompromising course; despite his stand, the church in Hungary was forced to submit to state control. In a directive to priests which explains their reasons for choosing the course of compromise, the Czech Council of Bishops wrote: “It is necessary to… save you for the spiritual care of the faithful.”